


And on the 4th Day

by mintboy (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drug Use, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Humanstuck, M/M, POV First Person, Possible Character Death, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16336796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mintboy
Summary: In a world where everyone can see a small timer beside their own head counting down to the moment they meet their soulmate, Dave has a gift and curse; he can see everyone else's soulmate timer ... and a second, more grim one.When he sees a man in a coffeeshop with two matching timers, he carries a new weight on his shoulders - one that will affect him for the rest of his life.





	And on the 4th Day

At first, I was under the impression that there was something gravely wrong with my head. It was common knowledge that everyone saw a little grey number to the right side of their face, when they looked in the mirror; it was a count-down to the moment they’d meet their soulmate. Everyone had that – it was normal, natural; a part of life. It was a little guideline for meeting the person you were destined to spend your life with, which, in my mind, was kind of sappy bullshit.

The thing was, though, that everyone could just see their own number. It wasn’t a public thing – it was private, something for you and your respective soulmate alone. That’s what makes me an oddity. You see, I could see not just my number, but _everyone’s_. I could see that little count-down on the right side of their face, ticking, ticking, ticking. And, if that wasn’t weird enough, there was another number, too. It floated just underneath the first, but it was bright red. That number was typically much, much longer than the first, and when I first realized I was the only one that saw them, I was about ninety-seven-point-six percent sure that I was bat-shit crazy. I didn’t even know what the second number meant. It was just there, always, and always ticking down, down, down.

I told my brother – who I lived with at the time – and he gave me some pills. I don’t know where he got them from, but I didn’t really have another choice. Bro didn’t really do doctors; he was committed to teaching me how to “patch myself up” – teaching being a loose word. I was meant to be homeschooled, as well, though I don’t think I’ve ever picked up anything thicker than a magazine to read in my life.

The pills Bro gave me didn’t make the numbers go away. They made them blurry, because they made everything blurry. I didn’t leave the apartment much as it was, due to the heat outside – we lived in Houston – but once I started the pills, I didn’t leave at all. In fact, I barely left my room, except for when Bro made me. I’d crawl from my bed to the closet, where I’d hide my food, and eat until I couldn’t, then drag myself back and stare at the ceiling.

Eventually, I just stopped taking the pills, because they stopped “working”, and if I took more than three at a time, I just vomited them back up. I somewhat accepted that the numbers might actually mean something, though the thought of being insane still stirred in the back of my head.

A little after I turned eighteen, I found out what the second number truly meant; and that it was just as real as the first. I had always had a hunch, but no proof – no one I ever saw had a terribly low number, so it’s not like I could see what it was counting down towards. Except Bro. After my eighteenth birthday, I noticed just how low his number was getting. His soulmate number had already hit zero long before I was born, so I had no idea who that had been, or what had happened to them. But the second number, the red one, was on a steady count-down to zero, and it was getting closer every second.

Then, it hit zero, one day. Bro was out at the time. I knew because it had been at three hours when he left the house in a fit of silent anger. When the police showed up at my doorstep, I understood – the second number was a count-down to a death date. It was the amount of time someone had left to live, and Bro’s had run out. I never really found out what happened to him, but I assumed it was some sort of dramatic brawl in a dark alleyway – and never thought to inquire further.

When Bro died, I went to live with a somewhat distant relative of mine, Rose Lalonde. She lived in New York City; she had lived in a secluded mansion of a house before she turned eighteen, when she migrated into the city to escape her mother, with whom she had a sort of complicated feud. I slept on her couch.

She asked me once or twice how I felt about what happened, but I never said much. Bro and I had an odd relationship. His death definitely affected me, but … I couldn’t say I had loved him. He had been a role-model. A figurehead. His death was stored away somewhere deep inside a museum inside my head, a white cloth covering the bloody canvas. It was something I’d face later, probably on my own.

When I started living with Rose, I didn’t immediately look for a job. There wasn’t much I knew how to do, and I didn’t have a high-school education. I was caught in a sort of melancholy net, and I’d sit on her couch all day, staring at the smooth, white ceilings of the apartment. It was nothing like the one I’d lived in with Bro. It was clean, refined, and a pleasant, sleepy beige.

Finally, Rose pushed me to go seek out work. I found a job at a little record store down the block, and I went there a couple times a week. The other, empty days I usually occupied with walks. I’d never know where I was going, but I’d just walk down the crisp, city streets. It was so different from Houston; it was pleasant, the air was chilly, and I had to wear a thick jacket. People buzzed down the streets, but in a sort of hurry that was calming to me. It made me feel insignificant, as opposed to isolated. Like I was a small part of a city’s greater puzzle, not an alien looking in at a strange species of Houstonian life-form.

I shoveled a spoonful of cheerios in my mouth, tapping my foot on the tile floor of Rose’s kitchenette.

“Do you have work today?” she inquired, leaning against the marble countertop. Her eyes flicked up and down over me, like she was quickly making her way over a page in a book; she read me like one.

“No,” I grumbled in response, craning my neck to see her better. She was dressed for school, her close neatly pressed and falling pleasantly over her slender build. She always knew exactly what to wear, it seemed.

I rubbed my eyes under my shades and she sighed.

“I see you haven’t slept, either,” she commented quickly and casually, turning to fetch her coffee.

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, suppressing a yawn, “I’ll take the train to snooze-town central after my walk. It’s a little early for me to grab tickets.”

I could feel Rose roll her eyes. Silence followed that; there was always sort of uncomfortable silence that followed the two of us around, as if there was something not said between us – a sliver of icy discomfort that never quite heated up enough to melt away. I tapped my foot to usher away the quiet.

“Call if you need anything,” was the last thing she said before leaving for the day.

I started my near-daily walk with a slight drag in my step. I was tired – dead tired, and each step felt like wading knee deep in icy molasses. I’d forgot my thick coat, having absentmindedly grabbed a sweatshirt, and I felt like the cold was splintering across my skin. I could hardly feel my fingers or toes.

Desperate for any semblance of heat, I ducked into a small coffee shop.

The heat hit me fast and hard, like a wave of warmth crashing onto my aching skin, which seemed uncomfortably dry from the cold outside. I rubbed my hands together as I adjusted. Fleetwood Mac echoed quietly over the noise of the patrons chatting over their coffees.

I glanced around, letting my eyes adjust; the light in the coffee shop was dimmer, warmer, and I wasn’t about to take my shades off. Numbers swarmed me, but I was used to it. I wandered up to the counter.

“What can I get for you today?” the barista chirped, almost too excitedly. A man loomed over her; I thought absently that it must be her first day.

04:45:11:05:59 for the barista until she met her soulmate, and 60:78:21:45:03 until her death.

“I’ll take a café au lait,” I said, after a short pause to take in her numbers.

“Will do!” her voice was shaking. I paid her and after she fumbled with the coins for a minute, I stepped aside to wait for my drink. I glanced around. Numbers mingled in the warm, cozy air, overlapping one another as people shuffled around the faux-antique wooden tables and chatted lazily. I tapped my foot on the ground to the beat of “The Chain”, humming under my breath. I brought my slowly warming hands up to the tips of my pierced ears, rubbing them to try and let them catch up to the rest of me.

I glanced around again.

16:95:14:12:42, 00:84:12:60:54, 09:21:23:56:03 – I paused. Across the room, there was a man sitting alone at a table. He had earbuds in and was furiously tapping away at an old computer. His hair was a tangled, curly mess, and there was sort of determination in his eyes that I’d never seen before; at least not from someone who appeared to be writing an email or essay. He appeared about my age, maybe a little older.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

“Dave?” the barista called, holding up my coffee, and I whipped around, my gaze breaking. I shuffled over slowly, taking the café au lait from her and thanking her briefly. I held it between my hands, letting the heat seep through my skin. It was refreshing.

My eyes skipped back over to the table in the back of the coffeeshop. The man was sitting there, still. I squinted.

His soulmate number was 00:04:00:02:54, and his death number was 00:04:00:05:54. Not only were both only four days away; they were just three minutes apart. In four days, he’d meet the supposed love of his life, and then he’d _die_. Just three minutes later. I felt something in my chest pull, but I swallowed and looked down. It wasn’t any of my business. It’s not like I could prevent his death – I could only see the date, not how or why he’d die. It was a book that was already written, and I had just turned to his page.

I left the coffee shop.

It was still freezing, so I just made my way back to Rose’s apartment. I put down the coffee on the counter. I no longer felt languid or tired, and the thought of drinking something made my stomach turn. I could only think of the man in the coffee shop; I was now carrying a burden I was not ready for. I just … _left him there_. In four days, he’d die, and I knew. What about his family? His friends? His job, or his school? Was he ill, did he know it was coming? Was it going to be an accident? Was someone after him?

My head spun, and spun, and spun. There was a sudden weight in my chest that I’d never felt. It curled around my heart. I hadn’t felt like this when Bro died, and I had known him so well – or, as well as he’d let me know him. Why did I feel this way about a stranger? It made no sense. We’d never met, never spoken. He was another blip on a long, long timeline, and his death would mean nothing to me. He was someone I’d seen once, and would never see again –

“Dave, are you alright?” Rose asked, suddenly, and my head snapped upwards. I hadn’t even heard the door close. How long had it been since I’d gotten home? She sat down beside me, her eyes falling on the untouched coffee on the table. She reached it over, lifting it in her long, delicate fingers. It was clearly full to the brim, and cold as ice.

“Something happened, I’m guessing?” she continued, and I realized I hadn’t answered her first question. I coughed, raising my hands to rub my eyes under my shades.

“’M fine,” I muttered.

Rose sighed, standing. She could sense I wasn’t in the mood to play Dr. Lalonde, therapy-extraordinaire, and I was thankful for it. For a moment, I felt that tiny sliver of ice between us falter, melting slightly. I knew it wouldn’t leave, though; it always returned.

“Eat something,” she said over her back, from the doorway to her bedroom. I didn’t get a chance to reply before the door shut, and I buried my head in my hands. I didn’t end up eating anything; I just sat there and watched the sun disappear from the windows. I eventually fell asleep, curled up in my jeans and sweatshirt in the corner of the couch. I didn’t dream.

For the next three days and I didn’t leave the apartment, not even for work; they called, but I didn’t pick up, and didn’t check the messages. If they’d fired me, I couldn’t find it in me to care. Every minute, every second was a moment closer to the time when that man in the coffeeshop would lose his life. And there was nothing I could do. My feelings fluctuated. I’d either sit on the couch in some sort of melancholy stupor, lost in my head as I kicked the leg of Rose’s coffee-table to an unsteady beat, or I’d wander around in a panic, feeling some sort of anxious pain explode through my fingers and palms as I paced, and paced, and paced. By the third day, when the latter feeling came around the corner, I simply clamped my jaws around my aching wrists, thirsty for a pain that I could control.

On the fourth day – the day he’d die – I cracked. I threw on my coat and grabbed my wallet, rushing out to the coffeeshop; I thought, I wished that perhaps he’d be there, that maybe there was something I could do to save him. I stopped in front of the door, taking a deep breath, and then walked inside. The warmth hit me again, but it was not comforting.

I looked around, and suddenly saw him. He was waiting for his coffee at the counter.

His soulmate number was 00:00:00:01:21, and his death number was 00:00:00:04:21. I took a deep breath, looking him up and down. He looked fine, for the most part. His breathing seemed a bit fast, and he looked very pale; but that could be from the weather. I watched as the timers ticked down, feeling frozen, when he suddenly wavered. A chill went through his body and he swayed.

I was rushing towards him before I even realized.

“Are you okay –” I blurted, just as his soulmate timer hit zero. _Oh_ , _god_ , I was the soulmate. I didn’t get a chance to process it, though, because he went down. He crumbled, and I scrambled to catch him in my arms, so he didn’t hit his head.

He had two minutes. He just had two minutes. 00:00:00:02:03. He blinked at me, slowly, his eyes unfocused.

“Wha…” he murmured, brow furrowing.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I brushed a hand through his hair, and looked up at the crowd that was gathering, “someone call 911, please,” I begged, and the barista took out her phone in trembling hands.

I felt tears in my eyes, but they refused to fall.

The man wheezed, gripping my coat in weak hands. He looked so afraid, god, he looked so afraid. His unfocused eyes darted across my face. His cheeks, lips and fingers were turning blue. God, where was the ambulance?

“Look at me,” I begged, pulling off my shades, “see? Look at me. We – we haven’t met – or, well, we just did, I’m Dave, I’m your soulmate.”

I rambled uselessly, knowing the words were going right through him like a ghost. At my last statement, whispers and gasps erupted amongst the crowd of coffee-house patrons.

He grunted, more coughs wracking through his body. His glazed eyes started to roll back.

“Hey, no, no,” my voice came out cracked, and I put my hand on his cheek. He flinched away, blinking back to his state of semi-consciousness, and I realized my fingers must still be cold from outside.

00:00:00:00:45. He had forty-five seconds.

I heard sirens from down the street, and I held him closer, shushing him softly as he coughed and wheezed, gasping for air. They weren’t going to make it in time. He was going to die in my arms. My soulmate.

00:00:00:00:20.

His eyes rolled back again, and I desperately shook him, but he didn’t come back. His eyelids fluttered, and he slumped in my arms, losing consciousness. A dry sob wracked my body, and I shook him again.

“Please, c’mon –”

00:00:00:00:05.

I put my hands on both of his cheeks, begging and begging. I wasn’t even sure what words were falling from my lips anymore. He took in a shaky, labored breath – then nothing.

00:00:00:00:00.

I held my tongue, my hands still on his cheeks, which were tinted an ugly blue.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, bringing a shaking hand to his neck. He had no pulse. The room was silent, save for the awkward shuffling of feet and someone sniffling behind me. The sirens got louder, suddenly; I just realized I had blocked out the noise. The door swung open and EMTs rushed in with a gurney and bags of supplies.

They ripped me away from him, and I couldn’t even struggle. My head felt like static, my mouth was full of cotton. One of the EMTs had her hands on my shoulders, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying to me. All I could see in my head was the man dying, over and over and over. His eyes rolling back. His body going limp in my arms as he passed out. His last, struggling breath ripping through him. He was my soulmate, and I didn’t even know his name – and god, he was gone.

Someone wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, guiding me to a seat. The crowd blocked his body, but I didn’t want to see it. It wasn’t long until the ambulance sped away, and with it the love of my life – someone I’d never get to really meet.

Two police officers hung back, trying to placate the crowd. One sat down beside me, calling Rose to come get me. He asked me a lot of questions, but I didn’t answer. Whatever he was saying didn’t matter to me.

The rest of the night was a blur. Rose took me home, made me dinner, laid me down in her bed – she told me she’d sleep on the couch, and I didn’t have the energy to argue. In fact, I didn’t have the energy to say anything. She didn’t probe me, didn’t ask questions; just left me in bed to sleep. I didn’t sleep for a long time. All I could think about was _him._ The man I was supposed to love, gone. I was no hero; I hadn’t saved his life. I’d just held him while his timer went out.

I wasn’t sure if I’d regretted going to the coffeeshop to see if he would be there. The same thing would’ve happened whether or not I’d gone, and according to our timers, it was destiny that I did. But god, it hurt so bad – a numb kind of hurt. A hurt that pulled all of the light out of me, sucking like a dark, endless black hole in my chest. I felt everything and nothing, all at once, and I couldn’t make it go away. When I eventually fell asleep, it was from exhaustion, and for sixteen hours. I woke up mid-afternoon the next day and felt like shit. My head felt empty, my chest felt full – but of something fake, something that didn’t matter. Some matter that just existed to make me feel something.

I walked to the hospital.

I shoved earbuds in my ears and blasted The Doors unwilling to listen to the sound of the hustle and bustle on the city streets – something I normally found comforting. The walk was long, but I couldn’t even use the time to think. My legs were moving a few steps ahead of my head.

I walked inside and up to the desk, pulling out my earbuds and shoving them into my pocket.

“How can I help you?” the receptionist asked. My mouth felt dry. I realized this would be the first thing I’ve said since … it happened.

“… Looking for someone,” my voice was embarrassingly hoarse, “don’t know his name.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, as if to ask for an explanation.

“He’s – my soulmate, but,” god, it was so hard to get the words out, “he, uh. Collapsed in a coffee shop right after I met him. I don’t know his name.”

The receptionist’s eyes widened in disbelief, but he picked up the phone. I didn’t hear what he said, too busy focusing on my own breathing, which was shaky and just a bit too fast. I took a deep breath, begging it to move more slowly. I didn’t know why I was there; there was a chance he’d just died for good, that he didn’t make it at all. This was just a wish – a hopeful little dream, something that’d get crushed right before my eyes at a little desk in a bleak, too-bright hospital office.

The receptionist put down the phone.

“You’re looking for Karkat Vantas. He’s in room 106,” he said, “he’s accepting visitors, but keep in mind that he can ask you to leave at any time.”

I nodded, my mouth feeling dry. _Karkat_. That was his name. My soulmate. And he was alive. I tried to feel some sort of happiness bloom in my chest, but all I felt was this deep, empty anxiety.

I made my way down the hall, which seemed endlessly long; the white walls and tile floors seemed to go on forever, twisting into little branches of tiny hallways and rooms. As I made my way to 106, I saw two men walking down the hallway; one about middle aged, the other probably five or six years older than me. They looked a lot like the man in the coffeeshop – Karkat, I reminded myself – and I realized they must be his family. They were chatting about dinner.

I walked up to the door, which was closed, and pushed up my shades on my nose. I hesitated because I didn’t know how to feel, or what I was going to say. There was no time to plan it, though – no, I had to commit. I slowly opened the door.

The room was small, and mostly populated by the hospital bed and buzzing machines. The walls were an unsettling white, with just a few Picasso prints hanging in little black frames. There were flowers on the chair beside the bed. My eyes then fell to Karkat, who was looking at me, wide eyed. There were nasal tubes framing his somewhat sunken cheeks.

“Who the fuck are you?” he grumbled, and I shifted where I stood, looking down.

“… I don’t know if you remember me,” I said, and god, my voice was too weak, and I hated it, “my name is Dave. I … was in the coffeeshop.”

“A lot of people were in the coffeeshop,” he replied, scowling. I took a couple awkward steps towards the bed.

“I went to help you,” I murmured.

“Some help you were,” he scoffed quickly, and something in my chest dipped. He wasn’t wrong about that, but he didn’t have to say it – though he had the right to, I told myself. He did _die_.

“… My soulmate clock ran out when I said hello to you,” I whispered, and though he had opened his mouth to cut me off, he froze.

“ _What_? No fucking way,” he crossed his arms. I sat down on the side of his bed, and he flinched. I looked at him in silence, for a second, listening to the white noise of the buzzing machines.

I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t right. We were supposed to be happy.

I tugged off my shades, rubbing my eyes. As I raised them to my face again, he grabbed my arm.

“Keep them off,” he ordered. I took a deep, shaking breath, but lowered the shades. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the bright, fluorescent lights of the hospital. He searched my face.

“I remember you,” he murmured, a whisper so quiet I almost didn’t hear. I glanced just to his right. His soulmate clock was zero. His death clock, though, was growing. With every moment we spoke, it ticked up another second, giving him longer and longer to live.

I redirected my gaze to his eyes. They were a warm, pleasant brown.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” I said, suddenly. His brow furrowed.

“We don’t have to,” he responded, laying his hand on top of mine. The cord of his IV brushed my wrist, “we don’t need fixing. People don’t need fixing.”

I nodded, unsure of how to reply. We sat there for a long, long time. There was a lot on my mind, and a lot in my heart – and I’m sure he felt the same, but there was a flicker of yellow in my chest. A tiny light, small but bright, a burning spot on my heart. Hope.

And as I stared at Karkat’s number, a steady tick upward to match mine, I thought that maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.


End file.
